


a pleasant surprise

by sleepy_ramtsun



Series: Tiny Worlds Made in Less Than Five Thousand Words [4]
Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Childhood, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, vague medieval fantasy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28630053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepy_ramtsun/pseuds/sleepy_ramtsun
Summary: In which, Itaru receives an unlikely visitor while looking for something.
Relationships: Chigasaki Itaru & Tachibana Izumi
Series: Tiny Worlds Made in Less Than Five Thousand Words [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1020420
Kudos: 14





	a pleasant surprise

**Author's Note:**

> A short ItaIzu childhood friendship drabble for me to get used to writing actual fics again after making so many thread fics yes…but I hope you enjoy! :D

* * *

They meet when the warmth of spring pierces through the haze of wintry cold.

“What’re ya hanging around here for?”

The high-pitched, if not, somewhat squeaky voice prompts a flinch from Itaru, hand instinctively jerking away to drop the glowing ruby of the crystallized ignis back on to the ground. Consciously, he tries not to wince at the small clink he heard from the elemental ore colliding with a stray rock, turning to face the owner of the sudden voice behind him.

Only to meet too-close coral pink eyes as the girl leans a little closer to him with a wide-eyed, curious gaze.

At seven years old, Itaru was more than proud that he didn’t scream like his older sister during that one time an insect landed on her face. But only just, as he falls flat on his behind on the ground while yelping in surprise.

“Are you okay?” the girl had mud streaked on one part of her cheeks as she hurried to help him get back up, a dirty and lightly callused hand grasping firmly on his left arm before hefting him back up on his feet.

“What do you want?” And it was only right that Itaru was more than wary, shoulders hunching back almost automatically in defense as he shakes off her light hold on his forearm despite how she looks at him with a mixture of confusion and worry as he steps a few steps back to create some distance between then. He had fallen for that kind of trick one too many times to still shy away from initiated interaction, suspicion all but blatant in his eyes as he stares back.

“Well,” the girl looks a little more thoughtful than hurt if any though, scratching her cheeks as she smiles, a little sheepish and awkward, “I saw you holding a rare elemental ore so I wanted to take a look! Ignis-based ores were super hard to find since their outer shells resembles a lot of regular rocks, unless you cast a location spell to find it. They say that these mountains contain a lot of elemental ores but even a lot of the adventurers and alchemists have a hard time trying to even find pure elemental ores like the one I saw you holding a while ago!”

“Not,” Itaru can’t help but correct, clenching one of his gloved fists to ground himself as the girl tilts her head in curiosity. His heart thunders a drum in his ears, stomach curling slightly under the weight of her gaze even as he pushed himself to correct her thoughts. “It’s…not…hard. You just have to find the right time of the day for the sun to touch the rocks…the ones that glow are the ignis-based ores.”

His voice grows quieter and quieter after each spoken word, fully expecting the jeers of disbelief and jabs following his explanation already, his shoulders hunching deeper though only to pause as the girl gasps in wonder.

“Really?” And perhaps it was how easy that Itaru could see each and every emotion running across the girl’s face that made him relax ever so slightly, his dwindling courage shooting back up as he ducks his head under her admiring gaze.

Instead, he used his actions to judge the position of the sun through the placing of her shadow, before striding back towards her to grab her hand and tug her towards a spot heading east, near the awning of a towering oak tree. “Here.”

“Why are we going in here?” she asks, though she didn’t resist to squatting beside the bushes to look at the grass clearing that they were previously in.

“Look,” is what Itaru says, voice a little quieter as he settled down on his crouch before pointing vaguely at the clearing. “Wait for it.”

“Huh? Where are—” the girl scrunches her eyebrows in confusion even as she turned her head, and Itaru felt his heart flutter a bit as her expression went slack-jawed with shock, following her gaze as he too looks beyond them with her.

Their breaths puff out in thin mists as they looked across the clearing, where soft glows of red interspersed the grass as the rays of sunshine pierced the area. Beside him, the girl’s eyes glittered as bright as the shine of the ore, the ruby of the crystallized ignis glowing under the early afternoon for a scant few seconds before disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared. Itaru finds his lips quirking upwards, a little proud of himself as he takes in the number of the ores that he had managed to take note of before the glow had disappeared.

“That was… _amazing!”_ A loud bark of breathless laughter startles him from his impending thoughts of farming the ores to bring back home later, so filled with stunned awe and giddiness as his eyes meet bright-eyed coral pink. The brown-haired girl smiles wide enough to curve her eyes, showing a gap-toothed smile that reminded Itaru of the first time that his front teeth fell out.

He had tried his hardest not to smile until they grew in, but as he looked at the girl beside him, he couldn’t help but think that it just felt _right_ that she should smile like that. Even with the missing space all.

“I didn’t know you could find them like that! That’s so cool,” she crowed, making him duck his head away as he felt the rising flush spread his cheeks at the sheer sincerity of her compliment. “Say, you’re even better than the mages that visited our motel!”

“M-Mages—” Itaru chokes, _and_ for good reason, because mages were as powerful as the Royal Order of Magicians, capable of standing side by side with the rest of the honorable knights _and how could he simply compare to that sheer prestige just by managing to find an elemental ore?_ “That’s not—I just—”

“All the mages that visited our motel always complained at least once that finding elemental ores in this area is harder than defeating first-class gorgons,” she admits far-too bluntly for his comfort, smiling still as she looks at him like he performed something far better the mages that protected their lands. “And you managed to find like dozens of crystallized ignis all in one go!”

“More people would know about it if they waited long enough,” is what Itaru chose to say instead, only to flinch at the heavy hand suddenly resting on his shoulders.

And just like a while earlier, he finds himself getting far too close in the other’s face as she frowns at him in indignation.

“You’re cool and that’s all that matters!” she says just a little too loudly, expression twisting into that of determination as he opens his mouth. “I won’t accept anything else!”

So Itaru obediently closes his mouth again, mutely voicing out his surrender upon seeing the faint ferocity showing on her eyes, much to the girl’s thinly-veiled triumph.

“See?” she laughs, her face misting for a moment but the warmth of her smile carefully unclenches the tension sitting in deep in Itaru’s stomach as she lets him go. “That wasn’t so hard, is it? My name’s Tachibana Izumi, by the way! Let’s be friends!”

The girl— _Tachibana Izumi_ holds out a hand in invitation, palms facing upward as she all but beams in anticipation.

But the “Why?” tumbles heavily out of his mouth, a little dumbfounded and no small amount feeling more than bewildered at the sudden turn of events, Itaru staring at the outstretched hand with the vaguest sense of longing and trepidation.

Absolutely _nothing_ about all of this was ordinary. Much less, even have him entertain the notion of a friendship with some random girl that he had never met.

“Why do you need to know a reason why people become friends, silly? This isn’t some grownup talk that makes my papa furrow his eyebrows so deep I’m scared that it’ll stay permanent one day,” Izumi laughs, but when he still didn’t take her outstretched hand for another few seconds, she clenches it into a fist.

Itaru braces himself _because there’s always, **always** the other shoe left…_only to be surprised for the nth time for today.

“I’ll prove it then!” she vows, the resolve echoing clearly in her gaze as she looks at him in determination. “I’ll prove to you why you should make me be your friend!”

“And no telling me your name until you think I earned it!” she hurries to add just before he could even think of a reply, making him raise an eyebrow in return.

“Wouldn’t that be unfair to you, though?” Itaru questions, but Izumi merely beams in response.

“The day I’ll know your name is the day I’ll know that we’ll have the friendship of the ages to come! So, you better bet that I’ll be the greatest friend you’ll ever have!”

Itaru didn’t know it just then, but as he looks into Izumi’s face, a space within him that he didn’t know to be empty seems to be filled up with warmth that reminds him so much of his mother’s hugs.

“Good luck on seeing me again, though,” so Itaru finds himself retorting in response, surprising himself at the teasing tone laced in his voice while he watches Tachibana’s face morphed into panicked horror.

“B-But don’t you come here every day to pick up ores?” the brunette splutters, and he dares to lift a careless shrug in response.

“I do,” he admits, only to add a, “but that doesn’t mean you’ll get to see me in _here.”_

After all, pure elemental ores are sparsely scattered around these mountains. Getting to find one was considered lucky enough, but aiming to find a specific one like Itaru was doing to build his very own sword means that he needs to scour different areas each day. And meeting another person during his travels was significantly out of the ordinary, but he supposed he should take it as a good thing instead.

Tachibana Izumi does not…look like she’s going to consider doing something inherently evil and other stuff the he had been warned to look out for every time he went out any time soon.

“Then I’ll just have to find you!” the sudden outburst brings him back to his present reality, blinking as Tachibana looks at him expectantly. Her right pinky finger was outstretched while the rest are curled into a fist, moving to touch the part where her heart lies before pressing it to her lips and then reaching it out towards him.

Itaru could count on one hand the times that he managed to commit a full promise with other people and actually follow up on them up until the end, most of them falling apart barely so soon after it was established or was just simply… _forgotten_ like a vague afterthought.

“I promise to always find you wherever you are!” she repeats her bold declaration as if she could hear his doubt, eyes glinting like starlight and so filled with vibrant energy. “So, you better not run away when I find you, okay?”

But looking at the suppressed tension coiled inside Tachibana’s dusty frame, maybe it would be a little… _different._

So, he nods, lips quirking into a smile despite himself as he returns the gesture with some measure of flourish as he fully looked towards her general direction.

“…Sure,” he murmurs, shaking their intertwined pinky fingers once. “I’ll be waiting.”

Except, he didn’t have to.

“Found you!”

Even without the use of some tracking spell as an aide while searching for specific locations…

“There you are!”

Without any kind of failure on her record…

“Ah! Found you!”

Tachibana Izumi manages to find him.

“Wait for me!”

Every.

“Sorry I’m late!”

Single.

“Oh, you already found one before I came!”

_Time._

“There you are!”

Perhaps Itaru was a little foolish for thinking that Tachibana Izumi would give up so easily…to leave before she could even put in some effort in trying.

Izumi's flushed face greets his gaze as the other runs up to him, expression vaguely accusing as she frowns at him. "I can’t believe you tried to hide your track—”

“Chigasaki. Chigasaki Itaru.”

“Eh?”

“My name. You better remember it, Tachibana,” Itaru’s hands were shoved the deepest that they could go within is front pockets, shoulders hunching ever so slightly to hide his reddening ears. Unconsciously, his legs started to pick up speed as he turns around to avoid Tachibana’s stupefied gaze, walking faster and faster and faster in order to escape the embarrassment of reenacting one of the cool play lines that he heard when a travelling troupe came to stay at their town.

There was a beat of silence, before he heard a loud splutter of surprise.

“O-Of course I will! I just couldn’t believe that you easily gave away your name like that—hey! Don’t walk so far ahead while I’m talking to you!” A patter of footsteps, and the faint swish of a moving scarf as Izumi hurries to catch up to him in a huff. “And call me Izumi, calling me Tachinana reminds me so much of parents, bleurgh.”

Itaru pauses, before resuming his pace. Somehow, a small smile had worked its way on his lips. “Sure…Izumi.”

And the smile he received almost rivaled that of the kaleidoscope crystals that they were supposed to search for today.

“Yeah, I always remember the name of my friends! So Chigasaki Itaru, what are we looking for today?”

“Diamond cosmos,” Itaru had just barely finished replying before Izumi lets out a loud whoop, stumbling at the sudden weight over his back as he spluttered in surprise.

“Thank you, thank you! You have no idea how much these will save me in alchemy, Itaru!"

Perhaps considering Tachibana Izumi to be a friend wouldn’t a bad after all.

Maybe this time, it would be… _different._

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
